


mr loverman

by reylofics



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:15:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26282524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reylofics/pseuds/reylofics
Summary: richie has a hard time moving on after eddie’s death. some part of him wants closure & another part doesn’t even know if he’d be able to handle the opportunity for closure if it slapped him right in the face.and then it does.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 7





	mr loverman

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS:  
> \- discussion of religion (atheism & God)  
> \- mention of blood  
> \- suicidal thoughts/references to suicide  
> \- mentions of homophobia & one use of the f slur
> 
> ** let me know if any additional trigger warnings are needed and/or if you would like me to add any of the trigger warnings to the tags!**
> 
> a/n: when your last fic was written like five months ago and got discontinued because of controversy surrounding the irl actors lolz... in the words of megan thee stallion: been that bitch, still that bitch, will forever be that bitch! 
> 
> ok but like tbh? i pretty much wrote this on a whim while vacationing this summer & decided to post it cuz ...? y not? yes, i know the storyline is all over the place and you can clearly see how easily distracted i get by the random tangents that pick up during weird parts of the story but whatever! it’s missing reddie hours and also!!! stenbrough deserves more justice.
> 
> btw sry abt this story being like semi-canon & also being off script at the same time 
> 
> p.p.s. i am actually religious, please don’t take the few comments abt religion in this story as a diss to anyone else who practices religion! we all process grief in different ways.

Losing him was the equivalent of someone twisting his heart with a knife. No matter how much he wished their roles were reversed, they weren’t. At the end of the day, Richie was alive and poor Eddie Kaspbrak wasn’t. How was it that Trashmouth Tozier, who hated every second of his existence on this Earth, was granted more time to live than the always careful, sweet Kaspbrak boy? Richie hadn’t necessarily believed in God before Eddie’s death, but he hadn’t refuted the belief of some higher being either. While he didn’t practice religion himself, he was still able to respect those who did; it made sense, seeing as one of his best friends, Stanley Uris, frequently practiced Judaism. Unfortunately, it didn’t take much convincing for the loudmouth comic to change his tune.

No longer a supporter of religion in any form, Richie made it a point to entirely write off God and any other similar higher beings. Whether it was Christianity, Judaism, or even Buddhism, Richie decided somewhere along the line that any existing God had failed him. He was no longer willing to tolerate a belief in any sort of God anymore, even when it came to Stan. Although, it wasn’t like Stan was around to tell him otherwise these days. 

Actually, Stan was one more person to add to the list of people that any form of God had failed. His bloody wrists in his once white bathtub made that pretty clear. Even if his suicide was a manipulative effort made by Pennywise the clown to scare the infamous Losers Club, it upset Richie to know that Stan placed his religious beliefs onto someone who had failed to save his life in the end. Maybe if Stan hadn’t been such an avid believer of God, some of that rather silly hope could’ve been put towards combatting the mental manipulation of that damn clown. Though, this was all purely hypothetical. No one would ever know the outcome of Stan’s life if he had been an Atheist, although Richie liked to imagine that the outcome of his life would’ve been much happier.

Not to mention the indisputable fact that Stan wouldn’t have been placed in a loveless marriage had it not been for his religion. It wasn’t the woman aspect of his relationship that made it loveless; surprisingly, it was more or less her religion. Stan’s parents had been more than accepting when he came out as bisexual during his 20s, a reaction Richie could’ve only dreamed to accept from his own parents.

However, Stan’s parents were incredibly disappointed when he came home with a non-Jewish boy to introduce to the family. They tried their best not to show it, but Stan could immediately tell how unsupportive they were of this new relationship. It shocked him, especially since he wasn’t really introducing a new person to the family. This was someone the family had known for years, someone Stan had grown up with since his early childhood. His parents later explained that while they both loved and adored the Denbrough boy, they didn’t see him as a viable romantic companion for their Stanley. 

Why? He wasn’t Jewish. 

Within a week, Stan was being dragged into a forced dinner with a family friend’s Jewish son. It was technically a date, but Stan didn’t dare to tell his boyfriend. They were still together at the time and Stan knew he wasn’t going to break up with him over some random Jewish boy. 

He ended up being right. The Jewish son, whose first name was also William like Stan’s boyfriend, ended up being incredibly dull and boring. At the raw age of 25, three years older than Stan, he had accomplished far less with his life. He was unemployed and, more disturbing to someone who was on the verge of graduating from a nice university, Will hadn’t attended a day of college after high school. This, he admitted rather arrogantly, was due to the fact that he was bound to receive his father’s inheritance soon, along with a partial investment in the family business. Due to this, he felt that there was no need for a higher education when everything was practically being handed to him.

Then Will went on to try and persuade his unofficial date from dropping out of university too. Stan made up some flimsy excuse right then and there for leaving. Completely exasperated, he called an Uber and was promptly dropped off by his dorm room at the aforementioned university. His roommate, Marvin, was almost never in the dorm room, so Stan was relieved to have the dorm room to himself for the rest of the night. Unbeknownst to him, his boyfriend had let himself in and was planning a nice date for the two of them within the confinements of the dorm room. This was not unwelcome, though Stan mentally smacked himself for not giving a better excuse as to where he had been when Bill asked. The best he was able to come up with was “I was out looking for hookup spots”, to which the other boy merely laughed at and accepted.

For the next several weeks, the series of dates continued to happen. Eventually, the pair moved from Stan’s dorm room to a nice apartment that they shared together. Weekly, Stan’s parents set up a date with a Jewish boy or girl for him to attend. Stan always obliged. Though let the record state, according to Stan, that he resented every second of these dates and always managed to ghost them by the end of each fateful night. Sadly for him, his boyfriend did not see these forced encounters in the same way that Stan did. Instead, rushing to conclusions and not even giving him a chance to explain, he came to the assumption that all the late nights Stan spent out were a result of him repeatedly cheating with some random person that Bill had no knowledge of.

Unfortunately for him, Stan had no time to prove otherwise. As he often recounted the story to Richie before his untimely death (he was the only one who would ever understand, since Richie was also pining for someone who didn’t feel the same), Bill had left him a single note with two short sentences on it: “I know you’re cheating. Don’t ever talk to me again”. 

Of course, Stan completely ignored the second half of that statement to begin with. With Bill and all of his belongings suddenly gone, Stan saw no choice other than to call his ex-boyfriend relentlessly until he picked up. In the six months that followed their breakup, every call, text and even knock at the door was ignored. At the end of those six months, Stan finally decided to move on and settle down with the one Jewish date he could tolerate. At least it would appease his parents. Her name was Patricia, Patty for short.

He didn’t love her, that was for sure. He barely even liked her. Yet, he was able to tolerate her and that was all that mattered. Really, Stan was okay with marrying a woman whose name started with the letter P, far away from the letter B in the alphabet. It would only be a couple quick short years of marriage to please his parents, then a divorce. Stan assumed that nothing was worse than a divorce—hopefully after a divorce, his parents would accept anything to see him regain the sense of happiness that he faked with this Jewish woman. He hoped that even Bill would be accepted, even though he had no idea if Bill would still love him or if his parents would really embrace him with open arms after a theoretical divorce.

Though, as most things do, Stan’s story ended in tragedy. There was never any divorce, nor were there ever any plans for one. He didn’t love his wife, but she loved him and he had grown to like her. Granted, he only grew to like her as a friend, but it was this new attachment to her that stopped him from wanting to break her heart.

In the end, her heart was broken with his death, but so was Bill’s. For Patricia Uris, there was a small tear in her heart caused by the man she had intended to spend the rest of her life with. Richie could hear the real, sick heartache in her voice from the one call he managed to spare for her benefit, in order to give his condolences for their dear friend.

But where there was Mrs. Uris suffering with something like a cold that would pass with time, Bill was suffering with terminal heartache. Richie could see the pain in Bill’s eyes every time his ex-boyfriend’s death was mentioned. 

While Richie might’ve been a blabbermouth, he was never an exposer of real secrets like Bill and Stan’s relationship that almost no one except for their respective families knew about; thus, Richie never brought up their relationship when their friends were around. However, he made it a point to give Bill hugs in private, allowing Bill to confide in the one person who knew and allowing his tears to stain his shirts. 

Richie almost felt selfish when the Losers Club reunited to kill Pennywise for good—he was able to see Eddie in person. Meanwhile, Bill was suffering. As a result, Bill wanted to kill Pennywise more than any of the others. After all, that damn clown had murdered his little brother in cold blood and he had coerced the one true love of his life to take his own life out of fear. Even with the amount of rage boiling in his veins, the absence of Stan in the group’s attempt to take down the clown for good was something he found hard to get past.

Needless to say, his feelings were all over the place during the group’s initial reunion. Later on, Bill admitted to Richie that he had kissed Bev halfway through the reunion; luckily, they had both come to the conclusion that their relationship wasn’t going to progress past that. It was a good thing; everyone knew that Beverly and Ben were meant to be, and Richie knew that Bill wasn’t going to ever quite get over Stan. This was evident because of the fact that Bill had overlooked everything when the announcement of Stan’s death came. 

It was sad because, true to his word (after six months), Stan actually hadn’t even attempted contact with the other boy. Leading up to the reunion, Bill had some schoolboy fantasy that they would fall back into each other’s arms with the approval of the rest of the group for once. When Stan’s wife called to let the group know that he was dead, Bill’s dreams were immediately crushed and he could feel a hammer breaking his heart into a tiny little million pieces. For starters, he hadn’t even known that Stan had married a woman. Yet somehow, he managed to get past that, all while still coming back to the same sorrowful conclusion that the only person he had ever really loved was dead. When he learned of Richie’s involvement in the situation, of the fact that he had known about their relationship, he didn’t even blame Richie for not telling him anything about Stan’s new life either. He was too sad to hurt anyone else.

When Eddie died, Richie didn’t understand how Bill could’ve been so calm towards everyone else when Stan had died. Maybe it was because the attraction hadn’t been one-sided for their entire lives. At least they had managed to put in some good years together, fond romantic memories that Bill had to look back on.

For Richie, he had nothing. Eddie didn’t have the slightest idea that Richie loved him in the way that Ben and Beverly loved each other. Sure, Richie had some friendly memories with Eddie that he could look into—a touch that might’ve meant something more, a look that hinted at more than friendship. Still, there was nothing concrete that solidified the relationship that Richie always wanted with Eddie. There were no kisses, no rolling into bed, not even a shared Netflix account. Instead, all Richie was left with were memories that caused him pain. Unlike Stan, with the permanent, same-sized hole in his heart, Richie had a hole in his heart that was growing by the day. He was bitter, hurt by the memories of someone who was only a ghost from the past now. It took most of his strength not to transfer this hurt and pain onto other people for every second of every day. 

Secretly though, Richie Tozier relished in the pain when he was in charge of it. His definition of being in charge of this pain meant that he was the one delivering it, not the one taking it. Maybe it didn’t entirely take his own pain away, but it sure as hell made it go away for a few seconds. It was like a painkiller, an addictive drug almost. No doubt, it was cruel to bully someone else into feeling hurt. Though Richie didn’t really care when he realized that his own pain subsided as a result. His pain only diminished for a few seconds but, nonetheless, any second without pain was a second that Richie craved. 

Sure, Richie definitely had his fair share of pain before Eddie had bled out to death right in front of his eyes. The one person he had come out to, his mother, wasn’t exactly ready to start attending pride parades with him. In fact, her reaction was the opposite. 

She didn’t necessarily abuse him or spit religiously tainted words at him like “faggot” or other homophobic slurs. No, she just clasped a feeble hand over her own mouth in shock and told her son to never again mention it to anyone else, much less his own father. The homophobic slurs weren’t outright said, but Richie knew she was silently thinking them to herself, wondering what she possibly could’ve done to have a gay son. Not that it was a choice, although Richie knew reactions like hers indicated otherwise. 

Since telling his mother, Richie hadn’t worked up the courage to tell anyone else. He had known about his attraction towards boys since middle school, when he realized that his feelings for Eddie went beyond what he felt for anyone else in the group. Up until the one year he spent in college before dropping out to become a full-time comic, Richie almost thought he was just Eddie-sexual, since he had never found himself attracted to anyone else. Then he had gotten sucked off by a girl and boy (at separate times) during the same party at college, and it was easy to figure out that he didn’t like girls in the same way that he liked boys. Still, it was safe to say that none of them compared to his Eddie. His Eddie, who he hadn’t seen since his days in Derry. 

Speaking of Derry, it was truly a haunted place. There were haunted memories full of haunted people that Richie was sincerely scared of. Coming out to his mother over Christmas break, at the vulnerable age of 19, was one of those haunted memories. Even more upsetting was the memory that came immediately after that one, the one where Richie bumped into Eddie back home and didn’t say a word. He was completely ashamed of his own sexuality at that point, too afraid to confront the boy who was basically the entire reason that Richie was gay. Richie didn’t forget for a day the way that Eddie’s face had dropped when he had held out his arms for a hug, only to have Richie walk right by him like a stranger. This was especially a big deal because Richie was the only person that Eddie was willing to hug, what with his fear of germs and such.

After that, Richie liked to pretend that the incident had never happened, though he knew that the incident set a precedent for the rest of their relationship. For the next ten years, there was minimal contact between them. The longest conversations they had were birthday wishes shared over text, but even those conversations eventually became shorter. By the time they were both 30, they were almost cut off from each other completely. Each boy still lingered in the back of each other’s mind, but it wasn’t the same. Nothing would ever top those days when they were huddled up close together in the hammock that Ben had so kindly installed in his underground fort for them. Richie came to the horrific realization that their time together in the fort was truly the prime of their relationship and, now that Eddie was dead, there really was no restoring their broken friendship. 

When Eddie had died in his arms, Richie felt a sense of completeness that no one else had ever made him feel. It was heartbreaking, having everything and losing it at the same time. With every crack in Eddie’s voice that came as a result of the blood spurting out of his mouth, Richie felt his will to live crack a little as well. Eddie was his lifeline. Whether he knew it or not, that was up for debate. But there was no doubt that both boys understood the urgency of the situation for reasons that went beyond Eddie simply just passing away in a dark cave.

In Eddie’s final moments, the only thing he saw was Richie’s tear-stricken, dirt covered face. Their eyes both sparkled with hope—Eddie’s last-minute wish to stay alive and Richie’s desperate last attempt to rekindle his relationship with Eddie Spaghetti. Both wishes were intertwined with one another and yet, neither one came true. Instead, Eddie had slowly bled out to death in the arms of the only boy in the world that loved him and Richie could instantly feel his own will to live slowly draining out of his body. It took all of his strength right then and there to not slash his own throat with a nearby rock and die next to Eddie. Clearly, the other Losers were not affected by the same suicidal tendencies.

If nothing else, they were more concerned with themselves than anyone else. In any other situation, Richie might’ve understood. But Eddie wasn’t any other person. This was Eddie Kaspbrak. His Eddie. The precious boy who had been duped into believing he had asthma since birth—but also the boy who had given everything up in order to help his friends defeat Pennywise the first time. It was a debt that could never be repaid, so it puzzled Richie as to why everyone was so quick to leave Eddie behind when everything came crashing down. 

They knew he would be crushed under the weight of the crumbling stones. With the rise of a new era, came the fall of Pennywise. And rightfully so. Even so, Richie didn’t see why this new era without Pennywise meant they also had to discard Eddie. Eddie was so quick to help his friends, who would apparently rather leave him behind instead of even attempting to save him from being a lost body. While Richie wasn’t the most fond of Eddie’s stuck-up work friends (especially Gerry, his replacement best friend), he figured whoever had the job of telling them that there was no body at the funeral would have to have some pretty crafty explanation in hand. A crafty explanation that no one had.

Months later at the funeral, Richie was right. No one had an explanation. Rarely anyone asked, for fear of getting an answer they didn’t want. The closest anyone got to directly discussing it was Eddie’s wife, who said that the funeral was closed-casket because no one could find Eddie’s body. The funeral was even held a town away from Derry, an odd selection made by the widow who had never lived anywhere near Derry her entire life. Again, it was another decision she could offer no explanation for.

“Everyone should feel free to offer up their prayers for him, but who knows if he’ll actually receive them,” were the only words of semi-comfort given by Eddie’s monstrosity of a wife.

Richie had always viewed her as a demon. Of course, she was still married to Eddie, something he had always wanted; but he knew their union wasn’t ideal. She was much like Eddie’s deceased mother, something Richie mentioned to Eddie the few times that they spoke after he had gotten married. Eddie was less than willing to accept any sort of criticism about his new bride, especially since she was always eavesdropping on his conversations with other people. He always either nervously laughed it off in that cute way that Richie struggled not to smile at, or he gave Richie a stern look and changed the conversation. Either way, Richie never really felt satisfied. In the end, Eddie was still legally married to a woman who tossed him around like a rag doll both mentally and physically. If Pennywise hadn’t killed him, Richie was sure that his dashing bride would have. 

Thankfully, Eddie’s wife hated Richie just as much as he hated her. He wasn’t sure he would have been able to stomach hating someone who was kind to him, at least while Eddie was around. He and Eddie might not have been on the closest of terms by the time Eddie passed, but Eddie simply being alive gave Richie enough purpose in life to at least attempt being cordial. Except with his wife.

From the second that monster married Eddie Kaspbrak, to the second that he died, Myra Kaspbrak hated Richie with every being of her body. It wasn’t just because he hated her and tried to dissuade Eddie from marrying her in the first place. It was also because, no matter how little time they spent together while Eddie was alive, she sensed that their bond would always be stronger than anything she even attempted to form with Eddie. Maybe a sexual relationship with Eddie would’ve overpowered his relationship with Richie. But that type of relationship had always been far out of the question. Eddie couldn’t fathom the thought of that type of relationship with his wife—it was like having sex with his mother.

So perhaps it was the refusal to have sex that made the wife’s distaste for Richie even stronger. She completely ignored his existence most times, only addressing him when Eddie was on a call with Richie and asked her to say hello to him. Begrudgingly, she would always say hello and then force him to get off the phone. Over time, Eddie stopped asking her to say hello and when she realized that he was doing that on purpose, eventually the calls with Richie stopped altogether.

At Eddie’s funeral, his wife was forced to acknowledge Richie’s presence for once. It was the first time seeing him in the flesh and she could automatically tell who Richie was in the crowd of people. Even without a visual description, she knew it was the man not even bothering to hide his red eyes in the first row, which he and his friends had somehow forced themselves into. Since it was Eddie’s funeral and all of his close family members were dead, his wife figured she would let the placement of his friends in the first row slide, though it irritated her.

Anyhow, she could automatically tell Richie was far more grief-stricken than anyone else. He was crying more than her, and she was Eddie’s widow! Thankfully, he was a quiet crier and his sadness didn’t attract too much attention. Instead, the only attraction he drew was from Eddie’s wife. She saw the way he rejected his friends placing their hands soothingly on his back, swatting their hands away when they attempted to comfort him. For those few seconds that she spent staring at someone who she considered the enemy, she began to feel sympathetic about the other boy’s predicament. She didn’t exactly know what his relationship was with her husband, but she knew it was special. 

Sighing, she pulled a hidden envelope from her bra and caressed the four corners of it with her thumb. She knew it was the right thing to do and brought herself to walk forward towards the sobbing man in front of her at her husband’s funeral. It was truly a rare act of kindness. Although she hated him with almost every ounce of her being, there was still a tiny ounce that sympathized with him over their shared loss.

“Richard?” she started softly behind him, firmly tapping his shoulder.

His friends immediately recoiled their heads back like snakes, eyeing the woman with suspicion. They all knew she was Eddie’s widow and they all, like Richie, had a great distaste for her. It was no secret that they loathed Eddie’s marriage and were all equally protective over Richie because of it, since they knew he was most affected for some unexplainable reason. Richie’s friends eyed the wife in question with beady eyes, placing their hands all over the small of Richie’s back in a protective manner. Their motherly instincts over the grown man were almost laughable, had they not been at a funeral. 

Little to anyone else’s knowledge, all of the Losers still felt guilty for their forced decision to leave Eddie behind. No one, except them, knew why Eddie’s body couldn’t be found. It made everyone, especially Richie, on edge. Knowing such a big secret and keeping it all to himself wasn’t exactly the hardest thing in the world for Richie—the fact that it concerned Eddie was what made it especially hard. 

“What?” Beverly Marsh spat out in a quiet manner at Eddie’s widow. 

She didn’t want to make a scene, but she also didn’t want her to dislike for the rather large woman to be lost in translation. Thankfully, it wasn’t. Eddie’s widow flinched at the harsh tone, gripping the envelope in her hands even more tightly. A part of her raged with jealousy when she saw the way that Beverly’s fiancé, an attractive young man named Ben something, kissed her fiery red hair softly in an attempt to calm her down.

It was hard to figure out what was more upsetting—the flashy rings on their fingers at a funeral, or such an open display of affection at a dead man’s event. It felt insensitive and out of place. Actions like theirs didn’t belong at such a sad get-together, and neither did people like them. Ben was the only extremely wealthy individual from the Losers, but his wealth was big enough to represent all of them as a whole. In return, their presence at Eddie’s funeral made the air seem more stuffy, a bit more haughty and prestigious. This was according to Myra, at least. 

“Bev, it’s okay,” assured Richie in response to his friend. He began stifling his sobs and turned around to face his woman counterpart, placing an exasperated hand on Beverly’s shoulder for support. “What do you want?”

His reaction wasn’t necessarily rude or outright demanding. If nothing else, Richie was just tired of beating around the bush and he wanted to get straight to the point. Though, it wasn’t missed how he still refused to address Eddie’s wife by her first name. None of the Losers ever addressed her by name. Truthfully, it wouldn’t be the biggest shock in the world if none of them actually knew her name to begin with. They all always addressed her as Eddie’s wife/widow, even in their heads.

“I don’t want anything. Came to give you this.”

Not even hesitating for a second, Eddie’s widow stepped forward with a rather thin envelope. She extended her arms out in order to allow Richie a chance to grab the envelope for himself. 

Richie, it seemed, was confused. He merely furrowed his brows in confusion at the little envelope, his red eyes seemingly becoming more prominent at the appearance of the white paper casing. Then the envelope fluttered down quietly into his lap, and just like that, Eddie’s widow was gone. There was nothing left to do but for Richie to open the envelope.

His fingers trembled slowly, struggling to peel back the corners of the envelope. The slow opening of the envelope caused a couple of tiny creases to develop around the edges, creating a nostalgic feel to the whole thing. Around him, the Losers were feigning disinterest, trying to allow Richie some privacy in reading a letter that they knew was addressed to him specifically. Still, he knew they were all equally anxious to see what had been written to him. A wandering eye or two would surely have caught sight of the words written on whatever letter Eddie had prepared for Richie before his death. He just hoped nothing too personal would be written in this particular letter—at least, nothing that the other Losers wouldn’t mind seeing.

In one swift motion, Richie ripped apart the envelope with shaky fingers. Out of it, fell a single piece of paper that Richie caught right before it landed further down on the clean wooden floor. The paper was a crisp white, indicating that it hadn’t been left alone in the envelope for too long. It was safe to assume that the letter had been written right before Eddie’s departure to Maine. Nonetheless, the fact that he had only written enough to fit on one piece of paper was disappointing to Richie. He had been expecting something more, though he didn’t feel now at Eddie’s funeral was an adequate time to complain.

Turning over the plain white paper, Richie was even more let down to see that the entire page hadn’t even been close to being taken up with Eddie’s words. Instead, only a few short sentences had been scribbled onto the paper. Richie laughed inappropriately at the fact that Eddie, who was always so meticulously square, had written on printer paper with a black ink pen that bled through the paper profusely. That was shocking, but less shocking was the fact that Eddie’s handwriting still resembled that of a schoolboy’s. His handwriting had always been like that, something he had never grown out of.

Mike craned forward for a better look at the piece of paper. Unlike the others, he had never hidden his interests in anything. If he wanted to see something, he would.

“What does it say?” Mike inquired, too far away from Richie to properly decipher the words on the paper.

The taller boy had designated himself as the outside protector of the group and, thus, sat himself on the right far end of the first row with the Losers. Richie was placed straight in the middle of them all. He was close enough for Mike to talk to, but far enough away where Mike had to strain his eyes just a little bit more to see anything small that Richie was holding. 

The downward spiral in his eyesight was something he had seen coming with old age, although he had been expecting it in his 50s—certainly not 30s. Then again, Mike was a librarian, and it seemed that almost all librarians had some weird case of horrible eyesight when they were both young and old. Not necessarily a curse, but not a blessing either. Instead of dwelling on it too often, Mike chose to accept it and deal with things as they were. It wasn’t like he couldn’t change it. Even if he could, he had to admit that it would be a pretty lame thing to change in comparison to the actual curses in his life. Changing the existence of Pennywise in the first place would’ve been a more useful wish, for example.

Meanwhile, in the middle of things, Richie was racking his brain for a believable response. He knew what the paper said. He just didn’t want to say, out of fear that the others would know exactly what he was talking about and try to dig up his gift before he did. That is, if it even was a gift. Either way, it wasn’t like the Losers would purposefully try to take his gift away from him. It was just that they were all naturally curious about things, especially when things concerned a member of their group. 

After Pennywise, they were all admittedly more cautious about approaching curiosities that involved members of their group. Nonetheless, they hadn’t strayed away from being curious altogether. Richie knew that anything concerning a dead member of their group, like Eddie or Stan, would immediately attract their attention and cause their curiosities to peak. Still, this was something he wanted to keep to himself.

‘The fort. Third floorboard to the right of the hammock (creaky step)’ was what the messy note had read. Richie didn’t blame Eddie for lacking a further explanation. Knowing his wife and knowing their friends, they were all nosy and would’ve tried to inquire more about what was written in the note when Richie received it. Simply writing directions down on the note was a way to quietly avoid all of the questions. It was leading Richie to a place that he would have all to himself, away from everyone else.

Though, it was unlikely that anyone would really remember the fort. Sure, it was true that the fort was where the Losers had found a memorable posthumous gift from Stan during their reunion in Derry. But even with Pennywise gone, it was still true that specific memories were pushed to the back of one’s mind upon their departure from Derry, unless there was something so significant that forced those memories to stay at the forefront. 

For some people, that “significant something” was a person. In Bill’s case, Stan was the one who made it impossible to forget about those specific memories involving him, like the fort. Those memories were painful to revisit and he hated the fact that he couldn’t have them locked up in the back of his mind like the rest of the Losers. Sometimes it was nice to remember the boy he once loved, pinching his cheeks teasingly in the corner of the dimly lit streets, away from all of the other Losers. Other times, it was painful to even see Stan’s face in his memory, knowing he would never see a real life reincarnation of those curls and pale white cheeks ever again. So Bill was content with recognizing that those memories existed, all the while refusing to talk about them. Richie was grateful for that, because it meant Bill wouldn’t push him further about the note from Eddie if he had even an inkling that it would lead back to memories about Derry.

The rest of the Losers weren’t a concern. Mike had every memory from Derry ingrained in his mind after all the years he spent there. It would’ve been a miracle for him to forget them all. However, like Stan, Mike wasn’t too keen on revisiting those memories and potentially bringing up past trauma in the process of it all. He knew they would have to discuss the aftermath of it all at some point but so soon, after the death of both Stan and Eddie, didn’t feel right. For that reason alone, Richie knew Mike wouldn’t push him further about the letter from Eddie, no matter what answer he gave. Ben and Beverly were hardly an issue either; both of them had moved Derry and all of its accompanying memories to the back of their minds, except for their recently flourishing love. Any answer that Richie gave would satisfy them both.

“Just says ‘I miss you all. Love, Eds’,” sniffled Richie in response to Mike, who immediately leaned back in his respective seat with a sad smile.

Of course, they all knew he was lying. Eddie, even to placate Richie in death, would have never referred to himself as ‘Eds’. It was always too informal for someone who liked everything to be laid out in a neat fashion, someone who went by the rules and never stepped outside of the lines. The farthest he was willing to go from his birth name, Edward, was Eddie—only because Eddie was shorter and slipped off the tongue faster, a simple convenience really. Richie had been the only one to constantly push this boundary.

As teenagers, Richie and Eddie’s back and forth banter about Richie’s nicknames for the shorter boy were a highlight of each day for the Losers Club. The nicknames ranged from a shorter version of Eddie, Eds, to rhyming names involving food, like Eddie Spaghetti. It was almost too easy, the way Richie was able to rile up the other boy in such a short amount of time. And their arguments would always fit the same pattern. Always the same names, always the same responses.

At times, Eddie would feign despair over the name-calling or more extreme annoyance. Thankfully, it was always clear that Richie’s actions never truly bothered him to the extent that he faked. Actually, Eddie was rather fond over Richie’s names for him. This, he would never admit though. It was a secret, one that Richie knew but never spoke about. He feared speaking about it would only cause Eddie’s faux annoyance to become real, like Richie’s reluctance to allow him to have his own personal secret would make him seriously irritated. So, with neither boy making a move to stop, the banter continued on and on until they had both made their separate ways from Derry. Even then, Richie managed to slip in a few old nicknames during late night phone calls with Eddie. It was a reminder of the past, and a good one at that.

“Oh,” mumbled Bill suddenly, being the only one out of the Losers to verbally respond to Richie’s made up response about Eddie’s letter.

He almost looked dejected, sinking back into his seat like a prisoner being thrown into a cave. Really, he didn’t know what answer he had been expecting. Anything else would’ve provided more room for imagination, more thoughts leading back to Derry. Bill shuddered at the thought, now grateful at Richie’s pitiful response to the group.

“Oh,” scoffed Richie, almost sarcastically back at Bill.

Another classic attempt at deflecting his own pain off on to other people. It worked. Bill visibly winced, almost as if Richie had hit him with a rather large stone instead of one ill-placed word. Richie grimaced, suddenly upset at himself for the reaction he had caused his friend. This often happened. He would find a moment of pleasure in granting someone else pain, which would soon disappear if he had a connection with the person he had hurt.

“Beep beep, Richie,” interjected Ben softly when his fiancée nudged him in Bill’s direction. 

Neither of them could stand to see the newly sad facial expression that Bill was sporting on his otherwise cheery face. Actually, Bill had been looking a lot more sad than usual lately. There were even times when his moderately sad face would turn extremely sour, and then his friends would try to intervene.

Now was one of those times and in helping one friend, they had hurt another. Richie’s face contorted into one of extreme disgust at the pair of lovebirds. It was not only their apparent display of affection that hurt him, it was also the way they mimicked little nuances of Eddie’s or did things that brought back those early memories in Derry. Obviously Ben and Beverly didn’t even remember their own memories, so it wasn’t like they were purposefully trying to attack Richie. Nonetheless, their actions still hurt and it felt deliberate, no matter how pure their intentions were.

With a few quick steps, Richie was out of the room. His hands were shoved deep in his black coat pockets, desperately searching for his car keys as he exited the small venue. He ignored the frantic calls of his friends, which gradually grew quieter and quieter as he moved farther away from the front row where his friends were. In a way, it almost felt like he was leaving behind Eddie too. Then he remembered Eddie’s body wasn’t even there.

Eddie’s body was most likely in the chasm of chaos that Pennywise’s departure had created. Rubble, dust and soot covered his body. At least, those were the things Richie had seen tumbling down on top of Eddie’s lifeless body before his friends dragged him out of the cave and onto the streets of Derry, Maine. 

Experiencing all of that had been incredibly surreal. Richie had gone through of a list of people to blame after Eddie’s death—namely his childhood bullies, who Pennywise had easily manipulated to act as an additional threat to the Losers. Henry Bowers and his incredibly confusing companion, Patrick Hockstetter, had been at the forefront of their struggles. They had never really targeted Eddie specifically, but they had never really strayed away from him either. This, Richie decided, was reason enough to blame them both.

He didn’t even care if they were gay for each other as the other Losers believed. Beverly, who had a soft spot for those with repressed sexualities, eventually sympathized for Henry when she tried explaining to the rest of her friends that his secret was the root cause for his vicious meanness. She agreed with the others that what he had done to them in their childhood wasn’t fair, but that he couldn’t be entirely to blame when he had grown up with a homophobic father and a town full of close-minded people. 

Patrick, on the other hand, was a complete psychopath who had manipulated Henry’s weakness in order to get him to love him. At least, this was according to Beverly. She didn’t believe Patrick had the capacity to truly love anyone, at least based on her own experiences that she refused to divulge with the group. Still, everyone trusted her in her belief that Patrick had used Henry’s love for him in order to convince him to act on his indifferences towards the Losers Club. Every one of the Losers affirmed that this was the truth. Everyone except for Richie.

After all, he was gay too. Maybe he didn’t have a boyfriend like Henry Bowers, but he knew what it was like to grow up in a close-minded town with homophobic tendencies. And unlike Henry Bowers, he didn’t use that as an excuse to act out and hurt other people physically. He certainly had never carved his name in someone else’s stomach. The thought of committing half of the acts that Henry had committed made him sick to his stomach. In fact, even if Richie had somehow managed to have a secret boyfriend like the older bully, he was convinced he would never have chosen someone who was so psychotic.

Ultimately though, Richie only blamed himself. He blamed himself for failing to protect Eddie in the end, and he blamed himself for not sheltering them both from anyone who even slightly resembled Henry Bowers. Maybe identifying the threat early on would’ve prevented Eddie’s death. Everything was only a result of the butterfly effect, the only real and true cause behind every malicious action. There was no God that was truly responsible for these actions, only the ill will of human beings who were already going down a path of evil. At least, this is what Richie believed.

Fortunately, while Richie might not have been able to save Eddie in death, he knew there was a way he could appease him in the afterlife. If an afterlife even existed, that is. 

His hands gripped the steering wheel tightly. Richie might’ve been a ghost himself if the veins in his forehead didn’t pop so fiercely out when he was angry. Those blue veins were a sharp indicator of human emotion and, more importantly, an indicator of frustration. Everything about Richie’s body language appropriately conveyed that very emotion. From the tap of his fingers on the thick steering wheel, to the urge to press the palm of his sweaty hand against the middle of the wheel to honk at other drivers for no reason, Richie was growing more and more frustrated by the minute.

He only had one destination in mind and it seemed like everyone was doing everything they could to prevent him from getting to that one place. It didn’t help matters that it was freezing cold inside of his car. It was moderately cold outside, something Richie could tolerate with a puffy jacket and a scarf. At Eddie’s funeral, he had been comfortable sitting inside of the heated building with only a suit and dress shoes on. He hadn’t even been thinking about the broken heater system inside of his own car until he abruptly walked away from his friends to drive. Therefore, every minute spent in his car was another shocking minute in which he had to withstand the electrifying cold air that had been trapped inside the confinements of his small car.

The weather made sense; it was the beginning of winter. Richie just thanked whatever the cause of the weather was for not creating snow. Granted, he still would’ve driven on in the snow. It just would’ve been more difficult.

But his destination made every other surrounding factor seem meaningless. It was almost desperate, the way Richie was gradually going past the speed limit like his life depended on it. He couldn’t afford a speeding ticket, but he also couldn’t afford another second wasted in his freezing car. The time spent weaving in and out of traffic was tiring, as was all of the mental commentary going on in his head. It all clouded his senses, to the point where he almost forgot where he was going.

Finally, after a series of painfully slow stoplights, he passed by a familiar welcoming sign and arrived at another familiar bridge. The bridge was short, but big enough for two cars to pass through on opposite sides. On the side, a car could stop and park without interfering with the two lanes of traffic. Said car would have to be small, no bigger than a normal sized parking space. Luckily, Richie’s car was just that size. Although he loathed this town, he also loathed any interactions with police—this included getting ticketed for non-moving violations. 

Recklessly, Richie swerved into the imaginary parking spot near the entrance of the bridge on the far right side. Carefully, he aligned his wheels along the edge of the curb that obviously hadn’t been re-done in years. Or ever, for that matter. The edge of the curb was broken and crumbling, cracking in all sorts of places. It was pitiful, leading down to a forest that evoked the same type of sorrowful attitude. Richie just barely glanced out of the window on the passenger’s side while he parked, and he grimaced at the sight of it. Tearing his eyes away from the scene, he turned his steering wheel straight and shifted the car’s gear to park it in place. When he felt the car lurch forward, hum softly, then jolt back to the original spot as it always did, Richie felt satisfied at his parking job and stepped outside of his car. 

Keys in hand, Richie tenderly stepped onto the broken curb. He crouched down, seeing exactly what he knew was there: ‘R + E’. His emotions from the day were already running high, and the fresh memento made things even worse. He couldn’t stop the tears from springing to his eyes in a wave of sadness. Richie could still feel the sharp knife grasped tightly in his hand while he had carved those initials onto the wooden railing that surrounded the bridge. The feelings those initials had brought up to the surface were no less stronger than they were before.

Gingerly, Richie pressed a finger against his lips and held it out to the carved ‘E’ on the wood. When he was finished with transferring the kiss, he outlined the letter with a dry finger in a heart shape. It wasn’t much, but it helped ease his pain a little. Anyhow, revisiting his memories with Eddie was better than transferring his current pain over to his current friends. Revisiting those memories caused the pain to simultaneously flare up and dull all at once. In many ways, it was an oddity he did not expect.

The harsh landscape down below the side of the bridge was also unexpected. The forest that Richie had encountered multiple times while running away from Bowers and his gang, or during his shortcut strolls to the Losers and their usual hangout spot, was still intact. That part was not surprising. More unsettling, though, were the thick weeds that had also sprouted up from the ground. They were mean, aggressive weeds that stood above the smaller native plants as if to claim the land for themselves. Accompanying these weeds were random bushes with thorns and ivy that was beginning to grow. 

Richie shook his head, knowing that the beautiful green landscape down below was on its last leg and would be forced to give up their territory soon. If the weeds and thorns didn’t take over, the ivy surely would. Ivy was beautiful, but incredibly sneaky in the way it was able to steal land and nutrients from other plants. In other words, ivy always won. Battling with ivy was a lost cause, as ivy was a wild thing that grew wherever it pleased. It could only be cut off at the root—that is, if the root of such an expansive plant could even be found after it had been allowed to grow. People didn’t realize how hurtful ivy was until they introduced it to their otherwise pretty gardens.

In his head, Richie made a mental note that ivy and a pretty garden could be used to compare Stan’s parents and Bill. Stan’s parents were ivy; they looked cheery enough on the outside, but their subtly intrusive sides were bound to come out when Stan introduced them to a non-Jewish romantic partner. At least, while Stan had been alive. And since Bill had been the only non-Jewish person that Stan had ever dated, he essentially represented every non-Jewish person that Stan could’ve ever met and dated. It wasn’t Stan’s fault that his parents were basically the only people in the world who refused to let their son date a non-Jewish human being, but it didn’t refute the fact that they were still horrible and vicious people behind closed doors about their son’s love life. 

Though, Richie wasn’t sure who he was going to share this revelation with. Maybe Ben, who would laugh and then later reprimand him after being sternly talked to by Beverly about the insensitivity of such a comparison. Then again, no one besides Bill knew about Stan and Bill’s relationship. So Richie couldn’t really tell anyone. He guessed he was just saving that particular comparison for an inappropriate chuckle later on. Surely, he would need some of those with so much recent grief in his life.

Not even a second later, his thoughts turned sour again. Richie even considered taking a purposefully wrong step and landing face first on a bunch of thorns down below. It wouldn’t be the worst idea he had ever had. Lately, he had been imagining many scenarios in which he either completely killed himself or at least gave himself a visibly fatal injury. A face full of thorns seemed like a pretty visibly fatal injury.

Unfortunately for Richie, he still had a heart and always envisioned the reactions of his friends after coming up with a practical scenario for hurting himself. As much as he loved Bill, he couldn’t really imagine him reacting so badly. Bill was in far worse shape than Richie, giving love to everyone around him but not being able to feel any himself. He was completely numb, desensitized by the murder of his little brother, the natural death of his two parents, the suicide of the only boy he had ever loved, and the murder of one of his best friends. 

Richie knew that Bill also felt upset over Henry’s death. This was due to a secret that had been shared between Richie and Bill during their reunion after a few drinks. Bill had revealed amid drinking yet another shot that he had been Henry’s first kiss with a boy besides Patrick. Even though their relationship never progressed past that first kiss, Henry admitted that suddenly everything made sense. Henry Bowers never publicly attacked Bill in public after that, other than making fun of his stutter. But the stutter was something that everyone besides Bill’s friends made fun of, so it wasn’t really much different coming from Henry. The point was, Henry laid off of Bill. The kiss, Bill explained, happened the summer after they had scared off Pennywise the first time. What with the Losers spending more time apart, he had somehow found himself at Henry’s after Patrick had gotten arrested for faking his own death.

Back then, Bill hadn’t known that the relationship between Henry and Patrick went beyond friendship. Still, he was intuitive and sensed that their relationship was special. It was a month after school ended, according to Bill, and he noticed how sad Henry had been moping around town. Bill had hated Henry like the rest of the Losers, but he couldn’t afford to lose someone else to suicide. Even if that someone else was Henry Bowers, they still lived in the same town and it would be a noticeable difference without him around. Besides, Bill had contemplated taking his own life a couple of times after his little brother’s death. He knew the signs and thought it would be heartless to see them in Henry without helping him. No matter who it was, Bill stood by the idea that no one’s life was worth taking.

So somehow, Bill ended up standing on Henry’s front porch, knocking the door with a small plate of warm cookies in his hand. At first, Henry had been reluctant and unwilling to sit down and discuss anything with the younger boy. Then, according to Bill’s version of events, Henry had agreed to taste one cookie and immediately invited Bill inside. From there on out, Bill described the rest of the story drunkenly. It was all a haze in Richie’s memory, partly because Bill had started slurring all of his words and partly because Richie had started blacking out at that point. All he knew was that Bill and Henry had kissed in Henry’s house, and Richie was sworn to secrecy over this fact.

Again, this was another reason to dislike Henry Bowers. Richie was obviously biased because Stan and Bill were his friends, but he hated the thought of either one of them being with anyone other than each other. That being said, he was able to say that he didn’t hate Stan’s wife, he just hated the fact that Stan had been too afraid to choose Bill instead. Of course, he felt a different way about Henry Bowers entirely. He didn’t see the same thing that the rest of the Losers saw, apparently. Even Ben, who still had a scar shaped in the beginning letters of Henry’s name on his stomach, held no ill will towards Henry anymore. It honestly surprised Richie, how they could all be so willing to forgive such a viciously violent man.

At the end of the day, it didn’t matter what circumstances he had been placed in or who he had kissed. Richie would always firmly believe that Henry Bowers was a horrible man who deserved to die. Again, he was biased because Henry had caused the love of his life to live in fear as a child, but Henry had also caused many other people pain. Richie could never see himself defending the man like Beverly had or feeling bad for him like Stan. There were plenty of people who had grown up in the same circumstances, if not worse, and hadn’t ended up as badly as Henry. Not all of them were placed in mental institutions, not all of them were guilty of being manipulated by a clown, and not all of them dated psychopathic murderers who got arrested.

Down on the very bridge he was currently at, Richie could still see Henry Bowers carving his own name into Ben’s stomach. He could see Henry’s friends holding Ben down, one of them even smiling at the blood that came from Ben’s flesh. This person had obviously been Patrick, Henry’s psychotic alleged boyfriend. Richie honestly didn’t know if they had been dating at the time and he didn’t care enough to find out, especially since they were both dead now.

Regardless of the minor details, Richie still knew the scene like the back of his hand. Ben had not only recounted it after the Losers had patched him up in the back of an alley, but it was also a story Ben had described in great detail before telling the Losers about his newfound forgiveness for Henry Bowers. Richie didn’t know why, but the story had stuck with him. The forgiveness, not so much.

He shuddered, suddenly feeling cold at the thought of a young teenage Henry at the bridge. His smile was something that still haunted Richie’s dreams, along with the handy pocketknife that Henry always seemed to have shoved in the back of his ratty cargo shorts. Honestly, his entire wardrobe was rather ratty if Richie thought about it. And he liked to think about it, since it distracted him from everything else about Henry. From the ratty cargo shorts to the tattered red muscle tee, it wasn’t very fitting for the son of a police officer. If Richie felt sorry for Henry at all, it was for his taste in clothes.

Though, as Richie peered tentatively down at the green forestry down below, he gulped out of a fear that he hadn’t even known was present. The brown path made out of bark and dead tree bits was barely visible, all sunlight lost because it was overshadowed by the towering trees above. Being in his 30s now, it was shocking how the same fear he had of Henry Bowers as a child still lingered in the back of his mind as he swung himself over the short bridge railing and onto the dirty path. He looked back behind him, almost as if he were suddenly afraid to get caught up by the deceased Henry or his even more psychotic boyfriend. Patrick had never fallen prone to Pennywise’s manipulation; he was all for causing a little bloodshed on his own, a Pennywise in human form. 

Richie then began to recall the time Patrick’s step-mother had gone missing, and how he and the other kids at school had discussed Patrick’s bloody nails at school the next day. No one had ever said anything about the bloody nails and a body was never found. Visibly creeped out now, Richie shuddered at the memory and willed himself to keep moving forward. If not for himself, then for Eddie.

Carefully, he stepped one foot in front of the other onto the broken down path. It was hard not to stray from the already laid out path for several reasons. One, Richie was older now and this steep path downhill was hard on his deteriorating knees—the flexibility he had been gifted with as a child didn’t come in handy now. Two, there were thorns and large plants that wove in and out of the path. Thus, to some degree, Richie had to focus on keeping his balance and remaining untouched by these mischievous plants. 

Rather slowly, Richie made his way down the uneven hill and back to the familiar, flat surface at the bottom. At the bottom, there was a fork in the road—two different paths on opposite sides of the bark path that seemingly split off in two separate directions. Richie knew better though. While the path on the left was shorter and more direct, the path on the right ultimately led to the same destination. The only difference was that the path on the right had a lot of switchbacks, meaning the journey was more tiresome and winding. Knowing that his age had already prevented him from being able to travel down the bark path to the best of his ability, Richie settled for traveling down the path on his left. 

Anyhow, now was not the time to prove his endurance. All Richie was focused on doing was making it to his destination in one piece. Firmly, he pressed his feet down onto the path on the left. It was like he was trying to make a permanent indent on the path, a sign that he had been there. That way, no one would’ve questioned the fact that he had made it to the trail in the first place. Though, Richie didn’t really know who would be so cruel as to question Richie’s appearance in the first place. Plus, no one from the funeral knew where he had been headed after his quick departure. Out here, he was on his own.

The prickly bushes clawed at his sides softly as he made his way through the path, pushing aside flimsy branches with his nice black sleeves. Thankfully, Richie had enough of an income to pay for the suit; he surely would’ve had hell to pay if he had gotten a rental suit dirty. Dirt was one thing to clean off of a suit, but the drooling sap from the trees nearby was another. It was sticky, inadvertently landing on certain parts of Richie’s attire. On any other day, Richie might’ve laughed at the thought of a sticky substance on his clothes, exchanging the sap for a liquid of a more sexual nature as the punchline for one of his many jokes. Today, however, was no laughing matter.

Getting to where he wanted proved to be more tiresome than he had planned for, an unexpected surprise. The cold weather wasn’t very helpful either. Without a jacket or any extra layers on, Richie was freezing. He shuddered at any contact that the surrounding plants made with his skin. Down below, his toes were growing numb and they almost felt detached from his narrow feet. Every step onto the laid out path caused some discomfort, but Richie kept pushing forward. He even ignored the gentle breeze that whipped cold air directly into his face.

After what he figured had been a lifetime of struggling, Richie made his way to the end of the path and into a dry clearing. The clearing was moderately sized, big enough for a small classroom of kids. Around the clearing, old trees stood as a protective guard. Sometimes, Richie couldn’t tell if they were meant to protect what was inside or what was outside of the clearing. Then again, there was one thing inside of the clearing that was too precious for outsiders to get to. It was a hidden secret that been kept between all of the Losers since their days in middle school with their new friend, Ben Hanscom.

At the ripe age of 12, Ben had decided what his future occupation was going to be: an architect. It was a job that excited him and made him happy, a rare feeling for any of the Losers to have. With this happiness, came an inexplicable joy that the other Losers felt determined to let Ben keep. So they all supported him in his newfound interest, allowing him to safely explore all aspects of the career in the clearing that Richie was standing in. After a few weeks of self-discovery and experimentation, Ben began building a base for an underground fort. To do this, he first began by digging a massive hole in the ground near the front of the clearing. All of the excess dirt was tossed to the side in a huge mound, later to be scattered all around and over the final product to hide it. After all, Ben didn’t want such a masterpiece going to waste at the hands of Henry Bowers and his gang.

For the next few months after his initial discovery of his love for building, Ben built the fort on his own. Occasionally, he would allow the Losers to help him or provide suggestions but most of it was done on his own. He was new to the whole building thing, and didn’t want to anyone to ruin his vision just yet. Ben meant no disrespect to the Losers, but he knew the only one who could truly carry out his plan in the way that he wanted was himself.

Plank after plank, nail after nail, Ben put the pieces of the fort together. Within four months, the fort was complete. Of course, there were a few wobbly structures and creaky planks that were ready to snap at any minute, but Ben was only 12 and the fort had been his first architectural project. Besides, he was surrounded by six other people his age who didn’t have much room to criticize him. They knew next to nothing about architecture. On top of that, they trusted their dear friend, who assured them that the fort was perfectly safe to enter. Additionally, the promise of being able to add their own extra touch to the fort once it was done was reason enough not to criticize Ben’s work. If Ben said he was done, then the Losers felt inclined to believe him and get to work on decorating the inside.

Stan, for one, was content with setting up a little stool in the corner. This garnered some curious reactions from his friends, mainly raised eyebrows. Richie remembered making an inappropriate joke about the stool in the corner, and he also remembered the way he had held his laugh in after Stan had irritatingly explained that the stool was all he needed to read his comics. Bill had backed him up against Richie, telling Richie that it wasn’t his place to poke fun at Stan for the decoration that he was bringing to the fort. Not that it was much of a decoration but, again, they were 12 and had a limited vocabulary.

Thankfully, the Losers didn’t have a limited vision for what they wanted to add to the fort. Beverly, colorful as always, brought a small, almost empty bucket of blue paint one day and used it to paint the bottom corners of the fort. The paint swatches were barely there, but clearly visible if you looked for them. Eddie immediately argued that the paint was smelly, insisting that the paint fumes carried over to his sensitive nostrils. Unlike Bill with Stan, Richie did not back up Eddie on this statement. Surely, they were capable of disagreeing on a few minor things and still having a healthy friendship.

Instead, Richie compromised and brought in a hammock to calm down the smaller boy from the paint fumes. It was an instantaneous relief. At the beginning of his introduction of the hammock to the fort, everyone wanted to lay down in it. Stan even brought in a timer to the fort so that their time on the hammock would be evenly spaced out. Fortunately, most of the Losers soon grew tired of the hammock and laid their desire to be on it to rest. Richie and Eddie remained the only ones who still wanted to use the hammock when everyone else didn’t. At first, Eddie insisted on still using the timer for separate turns on the hammock.

It only took one turn by himself on the hammock for Eddie to change his mind. The timer was still kept in the fort, but discarded and tossed under Stan’s stool. There was no need for a timer when Eddie had graciously decided to share the hammock with Richie. Granted, he was annoyed by Richie’s long limbs “accidentally” splaying over his from time to time, but he didn’t really mind it in the long run. In truth, Richie’s long legs wrapped around his own made him feel safe, and Eddie was never one to complain when Richie started playing footsie with him in the hammock. It was child’s play, and Eddie had never really minded it. In some ways, it became a part of the daily routine that Eddie never questioned, like picking up his prescriptions for his breathing problems.

“Rich?” someone asked, interrupting Richie’s thoughts.

Fiercely, like a predator searching for his prey, Richie whipped his head around in search of the mysterious voice. He had been only a second away from crushing his foot onto the flimsy pile of leaves in the center of the clearing, leaving the entrance of the childhood fort open. The leaves had been placed as a precaution after the group had recently retrieved Stan’s shower caps, so as to serve as a camouflage for anyone who came through. Richie had to admit it was a pretty lousy camouflage though, because the fort below could easily be discovered with a simple misstep. Still, it would’ve been something that he probably could’ve solved if not for the rude interruption.

Who would be around though? Not only was it freezing cold outside, but this was also Derry, a small town in the middle of nowhere. Rather anxiously, Richie craned his head in every direction, searching for the faint voice that had called his name. His left fingers drifted towards his shoes, his entire body crouching down to reach for the hidden pocketknife that he always shoved on the side of his left shoe. His eyes stayed forward and alert, though Richie was glad upon brushing the dirt off of his shoes that he had purchased these shoes with no intent of ever returning them. The trip down to Derry in these dress shoes had cost Richie any chance to return the dirty shoes back to the fancy store he had bought them from. That was fine; with his current job as a successful comedian, Richie had more than enough money to purchase as many dress shoes as he wanted in his life. Granted, he would have to “come out of hiding”, as his publicist called it, sometime soon.

“Richie?” the small voice tried again.

This time, Richie had a better understanding of where the voice was coming from. It was faint, but there was a ruffled robotic tone coming from the voice in question. Static sounds overlapped with the voice, just barely leaving a cloud of gray noise hanging over the sound of it. Of course, the sound was none other than Bill Denborough poking his head out of Richie’s pocket. His voice came out like a spirit from a genie’s lamp—except Richie’s phone was the genie’s lamp in this situation.

How he managed to get reception out here, let alone a call, Richie had no idea. Back as a kid, the only thing he had around to communicate with others was his mouth. Most of his friends either weren’t fortunate enough to own a bulky phone or they were were only allowed on the phone for a few minutes a day. Bill, the only one out of the entire group with a bulky telephone all to himself to use whenever he wanted, never even brought his telephone to the fort. Needless to say, it was surprising that such a modern piece of technology, a cellular phone in the 21st century, received service down in Derry. 

Really, it wasn’t something that Richie had much time to question and ponder over in the long run. Instead, he hastily wrapped his arm behind his back and plucked his phone out of his pocket with surprising ease. An apparent crease formed between his eyebrows—a signal of his frustration at the interruption. Nonetheless, he quickly put on a mask of cheerfulness, answering the phone with a chirpy, “Hello?”

Unfortunately for him, the word came out clipped and short on his tongue. After all, he was still reeling from the funeral that he had been at earlier in the day. That wasn’t something someone could just recover from in a mere matter of hours, especially when the funeral had been for someone so close to Richie’s heart. He hoped whoever was on the other end of the line wouldn’t comment too harshly on his abrasive tone.

“Richie?” the voice asked again.

God, he was really beginning to grow even more frustrated by the minute. This was the third time his name had been reiterated over the phone, even after a response from Richie himself. Truthfully speaking, he struggled not to toss his phone at a nearby tree and shatter it at the next mildest inconvenience. Taking a few seconds to regain his cool composure, Richie took a deep breath and tried answering the phone with a different response this time.

“Yep, that’s me. This is Richie.”

The dark-haired man couldn’t even bring himself to look down at the caller ID. Richie wasn’t in the right headspace to even see Bill’s name proudly displayed on the screen. Right then and there, he was acting on impulse, creating every decision recklessly. Fortunately for him, the caller seemed to take pity on him.

“It’s Bill, Richie. You sound freaked out.”

It was true. To a random caller, Richie might’ve been able to pass as seemingly nonchalant with a hint of stress. But Bill was no random caller. He had known Richie for years. Whether he wanted to or not, Bill knew all of Richie’s quirks and indicators. The short responses he was giving Bill were a strong indicator that Richie’s anxiety levels were high; in regular scenarios, Richie was an extreme chatterbox. Even in sad situations, Richie always talked up a storm and was eager to divert the attention onto things that were less depressing.

With all of that being said, Richie wasn’t fond of Bill picking up on those cues and choosing to point them out when he was so close to getting some closure from a deceased Eddie. In some ways, Bill’s call had made Richie more paranoid and anxious to end the call a few seconds in. Of course, Richie was always one to avoid awkward situations when he could and Bill was well aware of this. As Richie’s friend though, Bill felt that it was his duty to at least make some sort of attempt to reassure Richie about his current behavior. If he didn’t at least try, Bill knew he would feel like a lackluster friend—especially since Richie had always been there for him after Stan’s passing.

“Look,” Bill continued, knowing he wasn’t going to receive a response from Richie anytime soon, “I’ll keep it short because I know you’re busy. I’ll be honest right now and say that I know where you are. You’re down in Derry, back at the fort. Or somewhere around there. I don’t know exactly, I’m not a mind reader. And before you ask, no—I’m not telling the others about where you’re at. You don’t have to worry about us all coming down there to play rescue. Rich, I just want you to know that I understand. Not only that, but I know. Losing Eddie was probably different for you than losing Stan was for me, but trust me. I know how it feels. How much it hurts. All I wanted to say is that I hope whatever you’re doing provides you some sort of closure. And I guess I wasn’t as quick as I promised, but just know I’ll be here for you if you decide to come back.”

There was a soft sigh on the other end of the line and, for a second, Richie was worried that Bill was going to continue on with his speech. For a few stagnant moments, there was a white noise in the air that neither boy wished to interrupt. It wasn’t a question of who would say something next, it was simply a question of who would hang up next. Sadly, Richie knew he wasn’t ready to respond to his friend’s vocal support, and Bill knew that too. Luckily, Bill respected Richie’s current wish to remain silent and made the choice of deliberately hanging up on him to leave him with one less difficult decision.

Richie both admired and hated Bill for the call. He understood his reason for calling and was thankful that his friend had taken the time to check up on him. But still. Bill was the only one out of the entire group of Losers that remembered the significance of the fort. Beverly and Ben had no recollection of the fort and, while Mike remembered the existence of the fort, he didn’t necessarily understand the significance of it to the extent that Bill and Richie did. Thus, Richie really would’ve been surprised if Bill hadn’t made an effort to reach out after his sudden disappearance from Eddie’s funeral. 

Even so, Bill’s call had bummed Richie out. Now, he felt a little less excited about approaching the childhood fort. There hadn’t been much excitement to begin with, but most of the remaining excitement had now been replaced with cautious fear. There was a fear of the unknown, a fear that whatever awaited him in the fort wasn’t going to be what Richie wanted. Then again, no gift in the world would ever amount to what Richie truly wanted. The most expensive gift in the world would probably only leave Richie in tears, as it still wouldn’t equate to his ideal gift. In truth, the only thing Richie wanted was Eddie back. And he knew he wasn’t going to get that specific wish in the fort, but a boy could dream. 

Maybe in the days of Pennywise, that damn clown might’ve been able to make Richie’s fateful wish come true for a split second. It was a sad thing to admit, but Richie knew he wouldn’t have minded if Pennywise had conjured up a spitting image of Eddie for him to look at in real life one last time. Honestly, that was all he wanted. 

Taking small, tentative steps towards the fort, Richie closed his eyes tightly shut and scrunched them together. Thinking of unrealistic things was always what got him in trouble in the first place. Plus, he wasn’t looking to scare himself with his own imagination. If nothing else, reality would do that job for him; that is, reality would scare the living daylights out of Richie Tozier. Facing his demons had always been an incredibly hard struggle for him to face, but finally placing his feet next to the opening of the fort was the beginning to that painful process.

Bending down timidly, Richie reached down with his phone in one hand and nothing in the other. His free hand gripped the door handle tightly as his other hand slid his phone back into his coat pocket. Meeting his other hand, Richie brought both hands together onto the door handle and pulled back as hard as he could. The fort, as well built as it was after all these years, was always tricky to open. Even with the recent visit from the Losers, the hinges were still rusty and firmly set on attaching themselves to the wooden beams that they had been attached to by Ben as a teenager. Still, it wasn’t anything that couldn’t be solved with a harsh tug that sent Richie sprawling backwards onto his knees.

Richie was already resolving himself to throw his current clothes in the wash as soon as he got home. Dirt was rapidly accumulating on all of his clothing, along with random leaves. Right on his knees especially, there were two large patches of dirt that had marked themselves on his black slacks. Richie had his knees pressed into the ground, still reeling from the effects of pulling on the fort’s wooden door. He didn’t care that his current stance was inviting more dirt onto his knees, though this was something he still obviously acknowledged. 

Compared to other things, Richie really didn’t see a reason to dwell on it in the aftermath of everything. It was a smart decision. Messy clothes were always fixable. The fort was not. The fort was something he could only deal with when it was right there in front of him like a golden egg.

“Fuck,” Richie’s voice cracked as he stared at the gaping hole in front of him.

In a way, it was shocking to have the opening of the fort so close to him. It was easily within reach. Yet, Richie couldn’t see himself taking one step closer. He didn’t know why, but the thought of going down that rabbit hole seemed like a trap to him, something that would make him go to a place in his life that he never wanted to travel to. There were lots of painful memories in that fort, things that forced Richie’s internalized homophobia and regretful past actions to resurface. Still, he couldn’t just walk away. He owed Eddie that much.

For the time being, Richie knew it was critical to set aside his own personal discomfort in revisiting the fort. There was nothing that could physically hurt him inside, and this was a slight comfort. With that being said, there was nothing to stop him from thinking about the metaphorical knife twisting in his heart at just the thought of revisiting the fort. All he could was endure the emotional pain and stand up on his own two feet. Like the adult he tried to be, Richie slowly stood up and began the short journey of walking over to the entrance of the fort. 

A visible gasp escaped his throat at the sight of the childhood setting below him. Richie was surrounded by trees and fresh scenery, but all he could focus on was the gaping hole down below. The entrance was incredibly inviting to him after all these years, even seductive to a certain point. In one corner of the fort, Richie could see the discarded can in which the Losers had first retrieved Stan’s shower caps in honor of his memory. At that moment, Richie felt another salty tear flowing down his cheek. He wasn’t sure the tears had really ever stopped falling. All he was sure of was that if he didn’t go down that fort now, he never would.

Extremely cautious, Richie took a quick peek down the opening of his childhood fort. Going down wasn’t so scary, he decided. Honestly, the only thing preventing Richie from making an immediate jump down to the bottom was because of some irrational fear that he would encounter something he didn’t want to see down there. For all he knew, Pennywise awaited him with sharp teeth. Even worse, Pennywise awaited him with some false, creepy version of Eddie in a form that Richie would barely recognize. Anything involving Eddie was reason enough to prevent Richie from revisiting the bottom of the fort. If he was being honest, Richie wasn’t sure that he was entirely ready to see whatever Eddie had led him to the fort for. Then again, Richie couldn’t say for certain that he would ever be ready. A part of him would always cling onto the hope that in some universe, someplace far away, Eddie Kaspbrak was still well alive and healthy. Richie had resolved himself to the fact that no such outcome would ever be probable in this universe, but the very thought of it was enough to scare him from anything related to Eddie. 

Nonetheless, Richie knew that if he never tackled this situation head-on in the daylight, then the chance of something jumping out from the shadows and scaring him was so much greater at night. Trembling, he let out a huge breath of air that he didn’t even know he had been holding in. Letting it out was such a big relief and it definitely eased some of the stress that he felt bearing on his shoulders like Atlas. There were a million different things Richie could’ve done right then and there, but the best course of action seemed to be stepping down into the fort. So step down he did. The drop was short but, just like last time, the opening wasn’t necessarily built to support Richie’s nervous limbs as an adult.

As a teenager, Richie had been cursed with nervous limbs too. Although, still being a kid, he had fortunately also been blessed with nimble agility that easily allowed him to course from the opening of the fort to the bottom floor. Now an adult, Richie found it harder to plop down onto the wooden planks with two balanced feet. Instead, he braced himself for the impact, crouching down slowly and jumping down in a cannonball position. In retrospect, this was not the best position to fly down in. Really, Richie should’ve guessed that going down in such a best position would go against his stiff knees. Planting two feet down on the ground was out of the question the second that Richie jumped down.

When Richie reached the ground, he immediately yelped in pain. His legs crumbled down, barely supporting his upper torso and uninjured arms. For a second, he feared that he had twisted his ankle. Thankfully, he felt the instant pain in his right ankle dissipating after a few seconds. He decided that he must’ve just landed awkwardly on his ankle, which he figured was better than landing on it completely wrong. Still, he couldn’t seem to get up from his crumpled position on the floor. Glancing at his surroundings, Richie saw that the fort had been left exactly as the Losers had left it a few months ago. It almost made him start crying even more, to see how something that had once brought so much joy into his life was now left bare and abandoned. The dusty cobwebs in the corners didn’t help much with the built up emotions that Richie was experiencing upon his return to such a meaningful place.

On one side of the fort, Richie immediately spotted the infamous hammock. Tattered and dirty now, Richie didn’t dare to even touch it. With how much it had been torn apart by age and insects that had somehow made their way into the fort, Richie wouldn’t have been surprised if the hammock was unable to sustain the weight of a child without instantly falling down. It had been through a lot. Richie felt that he represented the hammock in human form, torn down by age and surrounding factors like the death of two friends. Staring at the hammock from the center of the fort almost felt rude, like an intrusion. The hammock was an inanimate object with no feelings but to Richie, it was more than that. The hammock represented a series of memories with the great love of his life. Memories that, seemingly, he would never be able to recreate nor replace. Even if Richie was lucky enough to fall in love with anyone else, he doubted that anyone would ever take Eddie’s place. There was no one in the world who could ever make him forget about the small boy with brown hair, he was sure of that. Richie had created a lifetime full of memories with that boy. That wasn’t something he could just forget about in the next ten, fifty, or even a hundred years.

With all of that happiness, there was also a great loss that Richie had a hard time ever seeing past. He couldn’t imagine being at a point in his life where he didn’t visibly clench up at even the mention of Eddie’s death, or break down in tears. Again, even if Richie somehow managed to fall in love for a second time, he wasn’t sure that any amount of happiness would be able to overpower his sadness. Plus, his feelings for Eddie had been built up for years. Richie was pretty sure that feelings like that were once in a lifetime, rightfully reserved for his one true love. Even in death, Richie still loved him.

At that moment, Richie knew he had to get up. Surprisingly, he was in the same position that he had been in after opening the door to the fort. His knees were pressed firmly onto the solid wooden base of the fort, spaced equally apart. The wood extracted some of the dirt from his expensive pants, though it was replaced with short wood chips from the floor. Richie didn’t really mind, patting it off his with his hands as he stood up. It only itched his knees a bit, but nothing was more pressing than seeing whatever Eddie had left for him by the hammock.

After all, Richie just knew that Eddie remembered. Regardless of whether or not his feelings for Richie were romantic or sincerely friendly, the hammock had always been their spot. None of the other Losers ever really went on the hammock. It was strictly reserved for Richie and Eddie to have fake marital spats on. Thinking back on those days, it was enough for the edges of Richie’s lips to curve up.

Just as quickly, they curved back down into a grimace. Behind the pillar supporting the back end of hammock, Richie spotted a tiny white envelope. It was about the size of his hands, if even that. Even so, the left side of the envelope was bulky. Richie almost wondered why Eddie had chosen to place everything in a white envelope, though that thought was almost immediately discarded. Of course he had placed everything in a white envelope. Everything about a white envelope screamed Eddie, from the crisp white corners, to the clean color and neatly sealed opening. Envelopes always had a decent sense of privacy too. They revealed a bit about the contents inside without revealing everything altogether. Thanks to this design, Richie was able to figure out that Eddie had placed something in this specific envelope other than another letter.

Rather anxiously, Richie subconsciously felt himself walking closer and closer to the envelope. He didn’t feel in control of his limbs, it was more of a direct impulse. Almost like the envelope itself was reeling him in with a rope. A fish latching onto the bait. 

Well, if the bait was something from Eddie, Richie was more than happy to play dumb and latch on. The end result would well be worth it. Gathering all of his courage, Richie shakily bent down and grabbed the envelope with fingers that were equally as shaky. Somehow, Eddie had managed to seal the envelope so that the bulky object inside didn’t immediately tumble into Richie’s hands as soon as he picked it up. Richie grimaced a bit over that, unsure about whether or not he was happy that the anticipation was building up and causing his heart to crazily drum back and forth in his chest. 

With a nervous twirl of his thumb, Richie caressed the opening of the envelope and gingerly began to tear it apart near the top, where a crease had developed to separate the front from the back. Honestly speaking, he didn’t trust himself enough to rip apart the envelope where it had been sealed. It was better to be as safe as possible. Besides, Richie was completely unwilling to allow himself to potentially damage the sensitive contents of the envelope. 

When the seams had finally been broken apart by Richie’s shaky fingers, he knew he had made the right decision in choosing the safe route to go. The contents, another letter and a small flip phone, were undamaged. 

The flip phone was surprising. Richie hadn’t seen one in a while, and he certainly hadn’t expected Eddie to even own one in the first place. What with all his rants about owning products that were safe and reliable, Richie would’ve never guessed that Eddie would’ve held onto an old flip phone from his early adulthood. After all, it had probably developed multiple safety concerns, along with slow speed. His curiosity about the flip phone was overwhelming, but Richie decided that it was best to read the letter first. Neatly folded like a hamburger as the first letter had been, it was easy to take apart and completely unfold. All laid out like a scroll in front of him, Richie squinted and adjusted his glasses. Of course, the text on the page was big and easy for Richie to read; he had simply moved his glasses onto the bridge of his nose to make it easier to see and to calm his nerves. 

‘I placed this here in the one spot I knew you would know to look. Going into this, I knew there was no coming back. All my life, I have wanted to go out as a hero. This was the only way I knew how to. I know, seeing me in real life for the first time in years, you probably thought I was a coward for my current life and the woman I married. You’re not wrong. Hopefully, you still don’t think of me as a coward. You are the most important person in the world to me. 

Over and over again, I tried writing this letter in the hopes that you would read it and see how much you meant to me. Twenty tries later, and I still couldn’t quite put it into words. So I took an old flip phone of mine from college, one I knew no one would find. I saved it for you. There is no password, all you have to do is open the phone. There’s only one thing on there, a video that I made for you. Know that you are in my heart always, Richie Tozier. 

Love,

Eddie Kaspbrak’

Needless to say, Richie was a bawling mess during the entirety of reading the simple letter that Eddie had set out for him. He wasn’t even bothering to stop his tears from setting onto the paper, something he knew would’ve upset Eddie if Eddie was still alive. 

Once, when they were kids, Richie had cried all over one of Eddie’s books. It had been a frustrating day and Richie had no other way to let it out. Like a good friend, Eddie had been comforting while it happened, even going as far as to bring the other boy in for a hug while Richie clutched the book and continued to sob onto its pages. Afterwards though, Eddie made a huge deal about it and impatiently explained to the other boy that his tears had caused the pages to lose their strength. 

“I’ll let it go this time because I knew you were upset, Rich,” Eddie had relented at the end of his disapproving speech to the other boy the next day. “But if you do it again, I’m going to kick your ass.”

To this, Richie had only replied, “Oh, you so wish I was the one kicking your ass instead! That’s one of your kinks, isn’t it? Aw, poor Eds!”

Richie had gotten over his sadness the previous day pretty quickly, so it felt almost natural to hurl an insult back at Eddie the second that the younger boy came at him with a clipped tone. The reddened tips of Eddie’s ears after Richie’s statement was more than enough to brighten his mood too. 

Thinking back on it, Richie realized that he missed Eddie more than he could ever explain. He knew exactly how Eddie felt, not being able to put his strong feelings into words. Bill was the only one who could understand to some extent how upset Richie was, but Richie knew their experiences still weren’t the same. No matter how much he tried to understand, Bill would never understand the feeling of having an unrequited love die in his arms. Bill had loved Stan, even when they were broken up; there was no denying just how strong Bill’s love for Stan was, and Richie would never try to dispute it. However, there were two strong disparities in Bill’s experience versus Richie’s. 

For starters, Stan had taken his life alone in his bathroom. Obviously this left a lot of unanswered questions, but it didn’t come with the same trauma as having Eddie bleed out to death in Richie’s arms did. That, and Bill never had the choice of leaving a dead Stan behind in a cave with Pennywise. So, there was that and there was also the fact that Bill had gotten some time in with Stan. It wasn’t like Richie didn’t have his fair share of interactions of Eddie, especially as kids, but he had never had the opportunity of pursuing anything beyond a friendship with the shorter boy. There had been some moments, like the time they had held hands watching a scary movie in Richie’s room as high schoolers (they were well aware of the fact that none of their other friends held hands anymore). 

Though as time grew on, Richie saw that Eddie would push himself farther away every time that Richie touched him. Not wanting to lose his best friend, Richie stopped pushing for extra touches with Eddie. Eventually, the little moments between them stopped happening altogether and Richie gave up all hope of a romantic future between the two. Somewhere along the lines, any hope of even a friendly future went down the drain as well. Richie still wasn’t exactly sure as to how or why it had happened, but he hoped the video that had specifically been made for him would answer some of his more pressing questions. 

Clutching the small flip phone in his left hand, Richie let the typed out letter and envelope fall to the ground gently. With a right hand to spare now, he flipped open the flip phone. It was harsher than it needed to be, a clear representation of his anxious frustration to see whatever video Eddie had prepared for him. 

As promised, there was only one thing on the tiny, minuscule screen. There was a small thumbnail filling up the screen. The perimeters of the screen made the thumbnail feel smaller, like it was trapped inside of a box that it could not get out of until Richie clicked it. Yet, Richie couldn’t tear his eyes away from the little image on the screen. There, on the compact screen, was a miniature version of Eddie and Richie as kids. They were both smiling, Richie’s arm wrapped around Eddie’s left shoulder. In the picture, Eddie looked nervous at the arm placement that was reeling him in, but not uncomfortable. If nothing else, the position merely made him camera shy. Though, whoever had taken the picture clearly had been able to capture the slight smile that Eddie gave to the photographer. Richie, on the other hand, was beaming with pride. The current Richie, awe-stricken at his younger and much happier self, almost couldn’t believe that the person in the picture was him.

Then again, the younger version of himself had been blessed with Eddie’s real life presence. There was no absence of Eddie in the older days, no questioning or wondering where he was. Even when Richie had first really started adulthood as a twenty year old, Eddie was still visibly present in his life. Now, it was like there was nothing. Eddie always felt out of reach, a rope that Richie couldn’t seem to hold onto. Richie struggled to accept it most days, but Eddie had been his lifeboat. Without him, Richie was struggling to breathe. 

Thus, even a mere picture of Eddie was enough to make Richie pause. It was not only a harsh reminder of Eddie’s passing, but it was a sudden jerk back to the past. Richie found himself crying over the sudden picture. He wasn’t entirely sure whether it was because of the fact that the photo had been taken during simpler times, because of the memories associated with that specific photo, or if it was because of nothing in particular. Whatever it was, Richie didn’t want to dwell on it. So he let himself cry. It might not have been out of sadness, but it felt good to let it out. 

Shakily, Richie hovered his right thumb over the button to click on the thumbnail. Inhaling sharply, he brought himself to press down firmly on the button and start the video. In a matter of seconds, the thumbnail faded away and a pixelated video filled the small screen with slightly crunchy audio. Admittedly, it wasn’t the best quality. Still, Richie was able to make out himself on the screen as a teenager. His big, blocky glasses were easy to spot in any video—regardless of the quality. It had been ages since Richie had worn such heavy glasses, but he still remembered the way they had sunk down onto his nose and brought out his eyes. 

In the video, Richie was alone. Well, sort of. He was the sole focus of the camera, with Eddie’s tiny voice narrating the scene in the background. Richie remembered the scene well. It had been Richie’s birthday at the time of the video. Vaguely, Richie had remembered Eddie recording him; it was also true that he had never seen footage from the event until now. Honestly, that day had passed by in a haze.

Plus, Richie’s 15th birthday certainly hadn’t been a grand milestone or anything like that. Nonetheless, he had at least expected his deadbeat parents to buy him a cake and throw him a small celebration. Unfortunately, Richie had never had the luxury of being blessed with parents who cared about him. So, on his 15th birthday, Richie was left home alone while his parents were out doing who knows what. His friends, as much as he loved them and wanted to celebrate his birthday with them, had been busy with their own problems. Beverly, at the time of Richie’s 15th birthday, had been staying with a relative while her dad was suffering through a violently alcoholic phase. Ben, on the other hand, had pretty much lost sight of everything else and was starving himself with a new diet that none of the Losers encouraged. It was the start of an obsession with losing weight unhealthily, something Richie wished he had noticed earlier.

Meanwhile, Mike was busy trying to hold down the fort at his own home. He spent his time trying to constantly appease his dad, working closely together with him every day on the farm. Bill, on the other hand, was the complete opposite. He was closed off from almost everyone, only interacting with his parents and his friends when he had to. It was a weird phase for Bill, a phase in which he constantly blamed himself for the death of his little brother several years prior. Stan was the only one who understood and the only one who Bill let in. Thus, Eddie was really the only one available for Richie’s birthday. Not that this revelation was met with any complaints—when it really came down to it, Eddie was the only one that Richie could entirely trust without any hesitation. No disrespect was meant to any of the other Losers, but Richie had simply known Eddie the longest. 

So for Richie’s 15th birthday, it was just the two boys celebrating the special day in Richie’s cramped apartment. Eddie documented the entire thing, and the video Richie was currently watching had been put together using clips from that day all those years ago. Excitedly, Eddie’s pipsqueak voice peppered the background noise of the video. 

At the beginning of the video, Richie was sitting on the floor with his legs crossed and his lanky arms folded awkwardly down on his lap. He hid under his floppy black hair, lowering his eyes from the curious gaze of Eddie’s huge camera.

“Richie! Look at the camera and say cheese, Mr. 15-year-old,” pouted Eddie behind the camera, his voice a sweet plea.

In front of the camera, Richie bashfully shook his head. His hair flipped up a bit, revealing a small part of the upper half of his glasses. On the screen, Eddie zoomed in to capture Richie’s eyes for the split millisecond that he glanced up to brush his hair out of his face. The teenage Richie grimaced and stuck his tongue out at the boy behind the camera, reaching a hand behind his neck to scratch at his baby hairs. When his hand came back around, he casually threw in a middle finger that Eddie immediately shielded the camera from. There was a fumbling of actions, and the current Richie laughed halfheartedly at the panicked actions of the younger Eddie. Younger Eddie’s fingers swiped over the camera lens and barely covered Richie’s raunchy display. His fingers were quickly replaced by Eddie’s shirt in an attempt to wipe off his fingerprints from the lens. 

After that, the camera had a slightly groggier focus than it did before, but Richie didn’t really care. All he cared about was keeping an intent focus on the screen in front of him and the video that had somehow been squished tightly onto a flip phone. 

“Fine,” huffed Eddie behind the camera once again. 

His tone had changed with a hint of real annoyance, but Richie had known that the attitude would drop quickly. After all, it was Richie’s birthday and who was Eddie to deny him any source of happiness on this special day?

“At least blow out your stupid candles for the camera, idiot,” grumbled the smaller boy. 

Looking up, Richie’s eyes sought for the teenage boy behind the camera. His eyes went past the camera lens and went farther back to reach Eddie’s eyes. The current Richie could still see the blush on Eddie’s cheeks when he had done that, so shy around Richie’s direct stares. He was the complete opposite of Richie, who had always been so bold and decisive with his actions back then. Nothing like his current self at all, always so hesitant now. 

Back then, Richie was impulsive. He acted suddenly, rarely pouring any thought into his decisions beforehand. Thus, it didn’t take much time for the taller boy to lean forward and hastily blow out the two candles in front of him. The candles were shaped to resemble the number one and five, together creating the number 15. Wax was slightly dripping down the sides of the cheap candles because of the hot flames on top, but Richie paid no attention to the drooping state of them. Instead, he swiped the frosting on the small cake below ontohis pointer finger and carelessly stuck the frosting covered finger in his mouth. At the camera, Richie grinned mischievously and wiggled his wet finger in front of the lens. His finger dangled in front of the camera lens like bait. 

“Ew, Richie,” complained Eddie lightly. “Your dumb finger’s going to get frosting all over the lens! And this is my mom’s, she’ll ground my ass if she finds out.”

“Wish she’d ground my ass,” Richie sighed in a dramatic fashion. He placed his hand over his heart like he was truly heartbroken. “Oh, c’mon. Eds, don’t look so mortified! It’ll be fine, sweet cheeks.”

The adult Richie grimaced at his younger self on the screen in confusion. He knew all the teasing was done in a meaningless, joking manner but still—something about their interactions made Richie feel sad as an adult. Maybe it was the fact that the time Richie spent annoying Eddie could’ve easily been spent doing other, more meaningful things. Even laying down in the hammock was a more productive use of time than teasing the other boy, Richie thought. Then again, he didn’t exactly know whether this was something he would change if he had the chance to go back in time. 

“Don’t call me that,” Eddie said behind the camera lens in that quiet voice he always used when his face was red and flushed with embarrassment. 

On the screen, Richie leaned forward. His face came into the frame like a giant, his huge glasses overpowering the rest of his face. There was a clear shot of the entirety of his face for a second. Then, just as quickly, his face moved out of the frame and went back behind the camera lens. A gentle commotion was barely audible and the current Richie simply assumed that there was a collision behind the scenes between the two boys. 

He heard a distinct “Ow!” from Eddie, whose voice rose a couple octaves in response to something Richie had done. The audio was still working, but all the adult Richie could see on the tiny screen now was a pitiful, lopsided cake with melting blank candles stuck squarely in the middle of the aforementioned cake. It was an odd scene, and an even stranger thing to look at while trying to focus on the dialogue behind the camera. For some reason, the voices became muffled, almost like the two boys were engaging in an embarrassing conversation that they subconsciously never wanted anyone to hear. Richie strained his ear to hear the conservation, even turning the volume on the flip phone all the way up. That being said, the volume on the flip phone wasn’t the greatest. It beeped rather loudly when Richie turned it up to its fullest extent, completely cutting out the audio when it alarmingly shouted at Richie to stop pressing buttons. 

Even with the volume turned all the way up, Richie was unable to hear the conversation clearly. It almost felt like he was stuck inside of a locked box and was trying to listen in on a conversation that was happening outside. Rather annoyed, Richie cupped the phone in the middle of his palm and held it up as close as he could to his right ear. With this new angle, at least the volume was louder. Everything still wasn’t one hundred percent intelligible, but now Richie couldn’t blame the volume for that issue. So, as best as he could, he tried to listen. In bits and pieces, he heard certain parts of the conversation. 

“Really glad you’re here, Eddie Spaghetti,” started the younger Richie behind the camera, trailing off and completing his sentence with something the older Richie couldn’t quite decipher. 

Shockingly enough, there was no exclamation at the nickname that Eddie always pretended to hate. It was a nickname that Richie had always loved to use and one that Eddie secretly loved, even if he always yelled at Richie for using it when they were around others. Little things like that nickname were things that Richie could never forget. 

“Anything for you,” came the response from the younger boy, and Richie smiled in response to the sweet statement. “I love—“

Suddenly, the audio cut off completely. It wasn’t a slight lull in the conversation or a muffled exchange of words. No, it was a direct cut off from the conversation at hand. Richie pulled his head away from the screen to inspect the sudden lack of audio. 

Those three words he had been waiting to hear from the other boy his entire life in a romantic manner—had it really been possible that Eddie had actually said them on his 15th birthday and Richie had somehow forgotten? No. Richie shook his head at the thought. He wouldn’t have forgotten something like that. Besides, there was no use in dwelling on what Eddie had said after the audio cut off. Instead, Richie was focused on paying attention to what was currently on the screen.

Slowly but surely, the screen transitioned. In this setting, Eddie was sitting in front of a camera with much nicer quality. Still, the quality wasn’t as good as it could’ve been because Richie was viewing this all on a flip phone. Nonetheless, he would take what he was given without any complaints. Anything from Eddie was a gift and Richie wasn’t one to take it for granted. If anything, Richie was actually taking in the beauty of this new setting with a grown up Eddie in front of the camera. He wasn’t sure how Eddie had managed to compile these clips together and put them onto a flip phone, but Richie was glad the other boy had figured it out. 

In the comfort of what looked like his own office, Eddie looked more comfortable sitting in a fresh black chair. The chair was modern but Eddie, always conforming to the standards of the past rather than the present, was sitting completely straight up in his chair with an old suit on. Richie immediately recognized it as a family heirloom, a suit belonging to Eddie’s father that Eddie had stumbled upon in the back of his mother’s closet one day. Eddie had never really known his father, but Richie understood the desire to keep the suit and feel close to the father he had never had before. It wasn’t his decision to comment on anyways. 

“Tozier, hey,” started Eddie, bringing Richie’s attention back to the miniature screen in his hand. “Mike just called me. I came back to the office to grab a couple of things before meeting up with everyone and I had this weird feeling, like something bad is going to happen. Statistically speaking, there’s a 1 in 7 chance that something bad will happen to me specifically. If something happens to me, you’re the one person I want to address. I’m never going to have the guts to address this in person.”

At this, Eddie paused to collect his thoughts for a moment. He was visibly thinking through his next words very carefully, and it scared Richie a little. It wasn’t that Eddie was necessarily unpredictable; however, there were often times where things with Eddie could very easily go in either a positive or negative direction. There was no in between most of the time, so Richie had to brace himself for the worst possible outcome. As a pessimist, it was always hard to envision the bright side of things. In other words, it was hard to imagine a scenario in which Eddie said the things that Richie wanted to hear exactly. 

In the same span of time, Eddie took a breath on screen as Richie took a breath to prepare himself for whatever was next. For all he knew, Eddie was planning to launch into a dramatic monologue in which he declared his prominent hatred for the other boy. Then again, Eddie could’ve had something simple on his mind, maybe a simple “Thank you for being my friend”. Again though, Richie wasn’t too familiar with the practice of envisioning comforting thoughts. Unfortunately for him, his mind always leaned towards the negative, an inescapable pit of doom sometimes. 

“Look, you’re really only going to see this if things get bad enough and I end up dying. Or some shit like that. I don’t know. I haven’t really thought it all through. All I know is that, while I’d like to say that I’ve lived my life with zero regrets right now, I can’t. It’s not the truth. Dying is really the only way I can live my truth. Wait,” Eddie grimaced, mentally face palming himself at the way he had phrased the last part of that statement. “I didn’t mean that in a suicide type of way. Like, I’m not going to kill myself. At least I don’t think so. I mean, no. Not going to kill myself.”

Richie chuckled. The prospect of Eddie killing himself wasn’t chuckle-worthy by any means, but Eddie getting so flustered over a slight butchering of words always made Richie smile. When he messed up in the slightest, Eddie never disappointed when it came to going off on a tangent to distract from his mistakes. At least, he always thought he was distracting from his mouthy mistakes. Really though, Eddie was only bringing more attention to the mistakes that Richie probably would’ve glossed over if Eddie hadn’t highlighted them. 

“Um, okay,” continued the embarrassed younger man. There was a slight hint of red creeping up onto his cheeks, threatening to overshadow the rest of his handsome face. “I guess, I just mean that I’m sorry if you’re seeing this. I wish I was there with you, Rich. Really, I do.”

A little taken aback by this premature apology given by a boy who surely couldn’t have foreseen his own death coming, Richie’s face froze in shock. For a split second, he was torn between remaining emotionless or letting the tears in his eyes fall freely. Needing a second to take the apology in, Richie immediately paused the video and sank onto the floor with his head in his knees. He was still clutching the phone tightly, but his right hand now fell limp beside his legs and felt detached from the rest of his body. The phone was a weight dragging him down and Richie felt like he was drowning. 

Even in the open air, surrounded by green forestry, Richie was suffocating. He was choking on the words he couldn’t get out, words that didn’t even matter because no one was around to hear them. It was hard to explain what he was feeling, because it felt like he was experiencing everything and nothing all at once. Seeing Eddie on the screen had felt great until he had given Richie a gentle reminder that currently, Eddie was gone. Eddie might’ve been present on a tiny screen, but he was absent in real life. 

Thousands of memories were flooding Richie’s mind. They swirled around his brain in an open field of pain. These were memories that Richie couldn’t pinpoint to a specific time or date, but they still evoked pitiful emotions from him. There was a lingering reminder that he could never recreate these memories. They were all set in stone and, positive or not, there was no chance to alter the outcome of them in his mind. It all felt like too much and Richie wondered why nothing earlier had triggered this sudden outburst of emotions. Watching all of these memories and emotions unfold in his own mind made him feel a little crazy, like a guard who had locked himself in his own prison.

“I fucking miss you too,” sobbed Richie quietly.

His words met the wooden floor beneath him, his tears quietly slipping into the cracks between each plank. It was a confession that eerily felt similar to the day at the lake after Eddie’s death. Except, this time, Richie had no one to wrap their arms around him and tell him everything was going to be alright. There was no Beverly to whisper soothing words into his ear as he wiped the tears out of his glasses. There was no Ben to support Beverly and offer Richie a warm hug in return. There was no Mike to simply wrap him in a tight hug, because spreading love through his actions rather than his words was what he was best at doing. There was no Bill to provide a knowing look, because he had somewhat been in Richie’s shoes before and knew the extent of his suffering. Worst of all, there was no Eddie or Stan to at least ease some of his pain. 

The worst part about making the trip back to his childhood fort was not having anyone to fall back on. There was no one to ask if he was okay. Certainly, if he had no one to check up on him besides the one phone call from Bill, Richie was also at a loss for support. Though he knew Bill would answer in an instant if he called, Richie didn’t want to necessarily burden him with the weight that was holding down his chest. For the moment being, Bill would leave Richie alone unless Richie explicitly demanded otherwise. This was partly due to the fact that Richie was explosive and fragile—Bill didn’t want to intrude and say something that was out of line in Richie’s eyes. Then again, Bill was still dealing with his own trauma regarding Stanley Uris. Dealing with that issue was a lot to handle already, and Richie didn’t want to put too much on his plate. Although Bill was the only one within the Losers that could relate to Richie’s struggles, Richie knew he would feel like a horrible friend if he ran to the other man every time Eddie’s death provoked him.

Somehow, Richie would get through this. He didn’t know how, but he would. Somehow, too, Richie would get through it on his own. Even if he was brave enough to ask for help from his friends, he knew deep down that a part of him would never fully be open to accepting help from the people he still blamed for Eddie’s death. He didn’t blame them for how it had gone down, but he did still blame them for forcing Richie to leave him behind. As many times as Richie ran through the end scenario in his head, he knew there was no other alternative. The only scenario in which he even attempted to bring Eddie out of the collapsing cave was a scenario in which Richie passed heroically as well. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world, but Richie knew it was selfish. He knew his friends were right in dragging him away from Eddie’s lifeless body, but he still blamed them for some unexplainable reason. 

In the midst of this all, several thoughts were racing through Richie’s mind at a speed faster than light. They were bouncing back and forth in an anxious manner, similar to Richie’s entire demeanor. When he felt like this, it felt like he would never calm down. Sometimes, he felt like was dying and other times, the less severe times, he would feel like he was choking in between breaths. Neither option was desirable, but Richie always preferred the times he felt like he was choking, because his mind wasn’t immediately set to death. In these cases, it often took less time to calm down. The only issue was, Richie conveniently forgot how to breathe when he felt like he was choking.

Straining himself more than he needed to, Richie was trying to recite the directions for breathing inside his own mind. It was a tool his therapist had recommended to him during what she liked to call “panic attacks”, though it was always difficult for Richie to follow through with this tool when he was actually experiencing these types of episodes. His mind blanked and he had to search deep and hard for the directions to allow himself to breathe again. A couple big breaths was all it took to calm himself down, but only if he could force his body to listen to his mind. 

Sharply, Richie sucked in air through his mouth. His mouth had been open, choking on nothing, but it closed with the sudden movement. Air trapped itself inside of him, staying put inside the little pocket that was his mouth. His cheeks swelled up like a chipmunk and Richie forced himself to swivel his head up above his knees to provide more access to air. Holding the air tightly between his lips, Richie let it out in one big gasp. He sputtered, reacting like a drowning victim who had just spit out water from their lungs. Notably, it wasn’t water that flew out of his mouth, but small streams of saliva. They dripped out of his mouth slowly and in any other circumstance, Richie would’ve made a crude joke out of it. This time, he couldn’t even muster up the energy to poke fun at himself. He felt dirty and low, disgusted at himself for reasons he couldn’t explain. It was a horrible feeling, to barely be in control of his own body. He hated it. 

At least the next breath came easier. Richie was able to suck in the surrounding air particles slowly and let them out one by one. He repeated this action until, finally, his breathing returned back to normal on its own. There was no direction from Richie when his breathing became normal again, it was now just a natural bodily function that acted on its accord. Richie wanted to let out a sigh of relief, but he was too hesitant to waste a breath on that. 

Instead, Richie turned his attention back to the phone that had fallen to the floor during his panic attack. The bottom half was wedged in between two planks that were spaced apart more than they should’ve been. Due to the inaccuracy in placing the boards next to each other, this left room for small objects to get wedged in between the two wooden planks. Richie couldn’t really fault the teenage Ben for this inaccuracy, though. After all, the fort had been Ben’s first real architectural project. Errors were bound to be made and Ben had never bothered to go back and fix them when the Losers had drifted apart during high school. 

Richie made no big deal out of leaning slightly over to his right and plucking the flip phone out of the wedge that it had fallen into. A little extra effort was required on his part to pull it out, but it wasn’t too strenuous. The small device fit perfectly into the palm of his hand and Richie accommodated it by cupping it slightly. Swiveling his hand around, he brought it back to face level and stared at the blank screen with red rimmed eyes. He saw his own reflection in the open black window, unsure of how comfortable he felt with looking at himself in such a disheveled state. Anxious to look at anything other than himself, Richie fumbled with the phone awkwardly until it finally turned on and he was left staring at Eddie’s adult face again. It felt intimate in a way, staring directly into the eyes of the other man on the screen. He wasn’t physically there but, spiritually, Richie swore he felt his presence right there in front of him. With a heavy heart, Richie pressed play. 

“I don’t want to make this long and painful,” continued Eddie in a short burst. “You’re probably going through a lot right now and I really don’t have much time before I have to catch my ride to Derry. I guess. I don’t know. Sorry, this is hard to say.”

Richie brought his nails up to his dry lips and bit the tips off rapidly. He chewed on them like they were intermission snacks, while Eddie racked his brain for an appropriate way to continue the video without coming off as overly emotional. On the screen, Eddie was visibly nervous and the red flush hadn’t quite left his cheeks. He fidgeted with his tie and audibly gulped, somehow sensing the nervousness of Richie on the other end. 

“Um,” Eddie exhaled, the word coming out almost unintelligible. “I love you. Like, not in the way friends are supposed to love each other. But I love you in the way I’m supposed to love Myra, the way my mother wanted me to love someone like her. I loved you when we were younger and I always thought that the feeling would eventually go away, but it never did. I’m in love with you, basically.”

Eddie chuckled, amused over his previous fear to confess via video. It really hadn’t been as scary as he thought it would be going into it. The only scary thing was anticipating Richie’s reaction, something Eddie didn’t have to worry about since the video was only going through after his passing. 

Richie, on the other hand, felt like his heart had both shattered into a million pieces and been completed at the same time. To say he hadn’t been expecting such a confession would’ve been a lie, because somewhere in the depths of his mind, Richie had hoped the video would entail such a thing. However, expecting it was much different than having to actually react to it and process it. 

The confession felt unreal. It made perfect sense and it also confused Richie to lengths he didn’t quite understand yet. He felt tempted to peek his head out at the top of the fort to search for cameras or snickering children above who were playing some sort of cruel joke on him. These were irrational fears, of course. Still, it didn’t stop Richie from cringing at the possible scenarios. In a way, he was trying to explain away the confession. Maybe if it all turned out to be a joke, Richie wouldn’t have to deal with the pain that came out of it. Then again, Richie hadn’t even finished the video. He realized it was too soon to jump to any sort of conclusions yet. 

“Well, that’s it,” Eddie started to conclude, clasping his hands together and peering over his large desk. It felt like he was staring directly into Richie’s soul. “I could go more in depth and list off every single reason I love you, but I think you already know. Plus, everything leads back to the same thing. I’m in love with you and that’s never going to change. I know your feelings for me are the same and I know you’re confused as to, like, why I never said anything before. In real life, I mean. And I’m sorry, Rich. That’s all I can really say. I don’t know how to explain how or why. All I know is that I love you, Trashmouth.”

With a gentle breath of exasperation, the smaller man leaned back into his spacious chair. The chair creaked slightly, a sign of its gradual aging, when Eddie swiveled around and hopped off. His feet firmly planted themselves on the floor with a quiet thud and Eddie’s stiff legs propped him upright immediately. He looked like a human tree, for lack of a better description. Though, soon enough, Eddie transitioned his stiffness to fit the behavior of a giddy child searching for candy. A slight spring in his step carried him all the way to the camera that had been recording the second half of Richie’s video.

Just like that, Eddie was behind the camera lens again and the video ended without warning. There was a gentle click of the camera as Eddie shut the video off, and then the screen on the flip phone turned to black. The black screen lingered for a few moments, until it too faded into the homescreen of the small phone. Once again, Richie was left staring at the childhood thumbnail with Eddie. 

He blinked. Was that really it?

Honestly, Richie had been expecting more. The way the video had started, with a nostalgic blast to the past, Richie was disappointed with the abrupt conclusion of the video. He wasn’t sure what Eddie wanted him to get from it. Sure, a small part of him was relieved at the fact that his feelings were reciprocated and he hadn’t been dreaming it all up. Nonetheless, a larger part of Richie felt unsatisfied. What was he to do with this information?

After all, it wasn’t like Richie could really tell anyone about Eddie’s confession. Eddie hadn’t explicitly said anything, but the fact that he had purposefully waited to confess until after his death sent a pretty strong message that Eddie did not wish to be outed or pronounced as gay, bisexual, or anything in between. Richie certainly respected that—he really did. Even so, it sucked that Eddie had delivered a piece of meaningful information to him that only hurt him more. Thinking on it for a couple of seconds, Richie figured it was safe enough to confide in Bill if he really needed to. Bill could always keep a secret, especially since he himself had managed to keep his own sexuality a secret for a while after high school. Henry Bowers, for obvious reasons, was the only one who really knew. At the time, Stan had an inkling, though he had never confronted Bill about it until the end of their senior year. So Bill would understand. Richie knew he would. 

Richie still didn’t understand though. He was at a loss for words; although, it wasn’t like Richie really could’ve said anything to an audience of zero people. That would’ve been pointless. Almost as pointless as Richie’s desperate attempt to grasp onto any form of closure that Eddie’s video might have provided. 

The older man was more concerned with receiving the ultimate closure from Eddie’s video that he hadn’t even stopped to truly acknowledge the meaningfulness of the other man’s love confession. Yes, it was true that Richie wasn’t able to run into the smaller boy’s arms and attack him with a love confession of his own. The opportunity for such a courageous display of affection was long gone. This opportunity was stuck somewhere underneath the pile of rubble that Eddie was covered by in Derry. 

Regardless, Richie had to let it sink in. There was a part of him that wanted to completely shut out the information and pretend it never existed. Envisioning a future without Eddie’s confession in the back of his mind felt comforting. It also made Richie feel uneasy, like he was a coward for wanting to take the safe path. Really, it was the pussy’s way out. 

Richie was no coward. At least he liked to let himself believe that. If nothing else, he wanted to make himself the man that Eddie clearly thought he was. After all, Eddie wasn’t the type to fall in love with cowards. The other Losers might’ve regarded Eddie as a coward most of the time, but that didn’t mean Eddie ever associated himself with people who were like-minded. In fact, the Losers were filled with brave people who acted like the mother that Eddie should’ve had. Eddie was the baby of the group that they all frequently looked after and protected. Richie was no exception to being Eddie’s protector. 

Even when they had drifted apart, starting in high school, Richie had never stopped hovering over Eddie’s shoulder and protecting him from every bad thing that came his way. Of course, he wasn’t entirely successful at this operation. He was human, after all. Plus, evil witches like Eddie’s wife were once in a blue moon; no one could’ve predicted that she would’ve entered Eddie’s life, nor would anybody have ever predicted that Eddie would’ve willingly chosen to marry her. Some things like that were unavoidable, no matter how many times Richie tried to talk the younger boy out of it. As they had grown older, Eddie had developed more of a voice and became confident with saying “No” to Richie’s demands. While this heavily frustrated Richie at times, he was also glad that Eddie had gained the confidence to start doing so in the first place. 

Looking back at their relationship over the years, Richie knew that he had been brave in Eddie’s eyes. It sounded vain to admit and made him sound like he was full of himself, though Richie knew this wasn’t the case. It was simply the truth. Whether Eddie ever verbally admitted it or not, Richie had been someone he looked up to. It would be shameful to push all that aside now. If Richie didn’t let Eddie’s confession sink in at the current moment in time, he never would. Still, it was hard to really focus on Eddie’s declaration of love when all Richie could think about the fact that it changed nothing in the long run.

As much as he wanted to be brave and face Eddie’s confession, Richie couldn’t bring himself to do it. He wanted to play hero and pretend that his story would have a happy ending. Now that the chapter with Eddie had officially closed, Richie was free to move on with his life. Right? Every once in a while, there might be reminders of the younger man that would cause Richie to stop and stare but, ultimately, he would be over him. There would be no remnants of Eddie left behind, no reminder that he had ever existed in Richie’s life as anything more than a mere acquaintance. No reminder that Richie was still in love with a dead man. No reminder that no one else could compare to the boy with rosy cheeks and a smile that set Richie off for days. No reminder that Eddie was gone.

This was the reality that Richie wanted for himself. It was pathetic, how badly he wanted to rip Eddie’s existence out of his brain if it stopped the constant pain he was feeling for even a second. He hated himself for being unable to provide himself the happy fairytale ending that he wanted. He hated himself for being too cowardly to face the facts and acknowledge the fact that Eddie had loved him and was never coming back. It was all too much handle, and Richie couldn’t bear the weight of taking it all on. 

“Man, I fucking hate you,” whispered Richie. The tears had started up again, rolling down the older man’s cheeks in an odd pattern. They spun down his face like tiny dancers, quickly jumping from one spot to another. 

It was unclear whether Richie hated himself or Eddie. Maybe he hated both.

**Author's Note:**

> i personally think stephen king is homophobic for killing off eddie in the books without ever giving us canon reddie content... meanwhile, mr hockstetter and bowers got a canon (although pretty disturbing) lowkey sex scene in the books??? chile-
> 
> also wtf sTOP who was gonna tell me i wrote this much over vacation? i’m personally at a loss for words (sry for not giving u the happy ending we all deserved too)


End file.
